Episode Tag: Red Handed
by starry19
Summary: Tag for 1x06 - "Weird case, huh?" he asked after an easy pause. The wife having an affair with the casino manager, the daughter being a veritable prostitute, and the son in law who was a murderer. "Yup," she agreed. "I bet their Christmas cards will be interesting this year."


**AN: **Hello again! This is the first (posted) installment in what is being informally referred to as the Super Duper Tag Project. Some background: there is currently a Mentalist rewatch going on, organized by the fine folks at SaveTM (Twitter). I got the (admittedly insane) idea to make sure that there was a tag for every episode. I enlisted the help of some friends – Donnamour, MleeWrite, itsavolcano, waterbaby, Idan, and Nerwen Aldarion, and we're in the process of figuring it out.

Eventually, my hope is that there is at least one story for every episode, and they will all also be archived in one place (also a big time work in progress/upcoming attraction). We've started with season 1, and we'll get tags posted as soon as they're written. Please be patient – we all have real lives (and other stories), so these will probably not be posted in chronological order.

If you're looking for more information, follow one of us (or better yet, ALL of us) on Twitter. More to come soon…

And now I'll shut up.

**Episode Tag 1x06 – Red Handed**

He hadn't been lying – the emeralds really did look lovely with her eyes.

The effect was somewhat lessened by her standard cop outfit. She needed an evening gown, her dark curls swept up for the image to be complete. Still, she was beautiful.

And that was dangerous territory.

He knew it, and it hadn't stopped him from flirting. From kissing the money she'd given him in an unmistakable gesture, from thoroughly enjoying the look on her face when she'd opened her gift.

Lisbon needed to let down her hair every once in a while, figuratively if not literally. Hell, she probably needed to do both.

It hadn't been a surprise when she'd given the emeralds back, or not much of one anyway. It was too personal, and Lisbon didn't dare entertain thoughts of having a personal relationship with anyone on her team, least of all him.

The thought made him snort. Granted, this was the only police unit he had ever been a part of, but he thought it would be difficult to find a leader who truly cared about those under her command more than Lisbon cared for the members of the Serious Crime Unit. She would have gone to hell and back for any one of them, including him, and if they ever had a problem, he knew she would have gone to any lengths to solve it.

Perhaps the problem was that the jewelry was too much from _him_. Lisbon had difficult categorizing the relationship she had with him, and he supposed he could understand her confusion. There were definitely days when he wasn't sure where she fit, too.

Technically, officially, she was his boss, though he could count on one hand the number of times he'd followed her orders directly. She was his friend, too, he was pretty sure, or at least the closest thing he had to one.

She was…someone he flirted with occasionally (alright - _often_), and most definitely someone he cared very much about. He could state easily and truthfully that he cared more about her than he did anyone else living.

But that was where lines started to get blurry. He never examined the boundaries, nor did he care to do so now.

Still, the light flirtation was a staple of their relationship, and he understood that he had crossed the line a little with his present. Jewelry was from lovers. It didn't matter that he had gotten Van Pelt the very same thing – when the team split into groups, he was with Lisbon, end of story.

His brain was working too fast.

He was tired, having been up for about thirty six hours in a row, thanks to his last poker playing spree. Then he'd had to run by the hospital to drop the briefcase of cash off. He'd gotten back in time to hear the first round of confessions, but hadn't stayed in the viewing room for long.

What kind of scum put their wife up for collateral? Furthermore, what kind of wife actually went along with such an agreement when circumstances came to pass? He couldn't ever imagine doing something like that to Angela, but if he had, she would have slapped him upside the head and left.

Then again, Angela was a stronger person than this particular woman had been. He could only hope that she would be able to come to terms with what had happened, to move beyond it and find someone who would treat her like an equal and not a bargaining chip.

He stretched out on his couch, arms behind his head. Hopefully the bullpen would quiet down before long and he could get some sleep.

Rigsby was still pumping him about what he had done with his winnings.

"You seriously couldn't have spent that much in one night," he was saying, chair pushed back from his desk.

"If you think I couldn't then you suffer from a lack of imagination," Jane answered. That much was true – he certainly could have found a way to blow that much money in a very, very short time period.

Cho simply shook his head, realizing Rigsby wasn't going to get any answers, then went back to his paperwork. Eventually, the other man gave up (poorly), and with a glance a Van Pelt, went to the break room, probably hoping something had magically appeared since the last time he was there.

There was the sound of footsteps. Lisbon, he knew, without looking.

She came near him then stopped at the edge of his rarely used desk. He glanced up, saw her leaning against it, and smiled.

"You must have some terrifying poker skills," she told him, and there was amusement in her voice.

"Meh," he said nonchalantly. "It's easy to win when people have such obvious tells."

Also, he cheated, but she didn't need to know that. She'd probably smack him.

"A lot of players say it's just luck, doing well," he went on, "but that's absolutely not true." And he used to be very good at manufacturing luck.

"Oh, I know," she responded, and there was a hint of arrogance.

Lisbon was a poker player. He filed that away in his mind.

They would have to have a game sometime. He would go easy, he decided. She was an appallingly bad liar, and would probably telegraph her hand so blatantly that a toddler could read it.

Still, it would be fun, a distraction. Some small thing that he could look forward to. He didn't have a lot of those, so they were precious, cherished.

"Weird case, huh?" he asked after an easy pause. The wife having an affair with the casino manager, the daughter being a veritable prostitute, and the son in law who was a murderer.

"Yup," she agreed. "I bet their Christmas cards will be interesting this year."

He laughed, though the situation wasn't really funny. He had learned about week three of working with the CBI that it was okay to have sense of humor about the job – _necessary_, even. It wasn't particularly tactful, and in no way did it lessen the gravity of the crimes that were committed, but if you didn't laugh, you would lose your mind. And he had very little left of his sanity that he could part with.

Lisbon sighed, stretching a bit, and he knew that she would be going for more coffee soon. Occasionally, he brought her cups of decaf without telling her. One of these days, she was going to have a heart attack, and he was trying to postpone it.

"Back to work," she said lightly, pushing away from his desk. "Thanks for not doing anything particularly ridiculous this case. It saves me a ton of paperwork."

He waved a hand at her, but she wasn't looking. "Anytime."

Turning on to his side, he crossed his arms, watched her walk away through mostly closed eyes. Another perk of the job. The woman did have a fabulous rear, and he would have to be blind or dead to not appreciate it, and he was neither.

He hadn't been lying – it _had_ been a strange case. Not the least of which had been his admission to the entire team about his memory palace and his past.

Those were two things that he usually kept very close to his heart. Apparently, three beers made him very chatty, but he had been surprised at how _okay_ he felt about sharing such information. Perhaps it was because he did actually trust the four people that had been sitting with him. No one was out to get him, to stop him, to call him on his con. They all had his back. Lisbon had actually killed people to protect him.

It was…a strange and comforting idea. He was surrounded by people who cared about him. Open, honest people who weren't running games of their own. It was easy to be himself, to be light hearted and playful and flirt with the girls, just a bit.

He'd had _fun_, actual fun. Everyone else had had a few drinks, and was as laughing and teasing as he'd been.

For the first time in years, he caught himself contemplating life after Red John. Assuming he lived through it (which was probably an enormously large _if_), he wondered if perhaps there would still be a place for him here.

He felt suspiciously hopeful.

He closed his eyes fully.

_Well. How about that?_


End file.
